Person 1: What ya reading?
Person 2: ( flips up book cover) Wallace Stegnar’s “Angle of Repose”
Person 1: ( looks shocked ) ‘ wouldn’t expect to see a book like that in this place.
Person 2: ( shrugs ) ‘ wouldn’t expect a person who knew this book was outa place in this place.
Both parties return to eating.
OK if I hear “Obama’s Health Care Reform is Communist ( or Socialist )” on more time I think my head is going to explode. The above statement is not only inaccurate on 2 points but it’s more a reflection of the ignorance of the person making the statement than it is a statement about the proposed health care reform.
First Obama hasn’t proposed any kind of legislation on Health Care. None, not one line. He’s getting ready too after 2 months of waiting for congress to get it’s act together. But there has been nothing from him yet. So… if you want to lambast the Democratic Plan, the Congressional Plan, or whatever … have fun but pinning the tale on the President in this case is just silly.
Second and more importantly as it speaks to a serious problem with the Political Right in this country, Democrats are not Socialist. Every time anything comes up that doesn’t put government money in the hands of people insteand of multi-billion dollar corporations the Right has taken to screaming ”Communist!!! Socialist!!!” Which is simply not the case. I won’t babble on about left wing political theory, instead I’ll just offer two examples of what Communist and Socialist healthcare reform might look like.
Communist Healthcare Reform would nationalize all healthcare service providers including Hospitals, Dr. Offices, Insurance Companies, First Responders, and Clinics. It would then Kill, imprison, or convert the owners, boards of directors, and executives of all of these organizations. Healthcare would be free to everybody and no competition to the state run plan would be permitted.
Socialist Healthcare Reform is nicer but it still involves the government take over of at least all the processes involved in health care. While socialists aren’t likely to kill anybody or even require that anybody agree with them, a socialist plan would nationalize or mostly nationalize all organizations associated with healthcare. Doctors become employees of the state, hospitals become government run/owned facilities, health insurance companies go away entirely. How this is accomplished varies, often executives become government employees and companies are bought out.
The current Healthcare Reform plans do none of the above. It imposes a few regulations here and there, mostly to make sure insurance companies aren’t unreasonably sending people to their death or into bankruptcy and it provides for a government run plan in the market.
Alot is made of the government run plan, mostly but not entirely it’s all hype. If you think for a moment such a plan would put all other plans out of business you need only to look at the USPS, Fed Ex, UPS, and DHL. The USPS provides a minimum level of service, it’s mostly adequate, quite reliable and lacks any real bells and whistles. It exists because basic Mail service is essential to the functioning of our country. It has to be there and it has to be reliable. For those who want all the bells and whistles private companies are the way to go ( well mostly. I’ve had plenty a parcel destroyed by UPS. ) Both private and profit driven industry and basic government service exist in the same market with no real problems.
Now I could go on about how basic healthcare is essential to the continued growth and the economic survival of the country especially diseases being spread world wide in hours. I could talk about how leaving even small enclaved portions of the population unable to receive treatment for these diseases puts us all at risk. But I won’t. Those are value judgments we all have to make and the facts may not be on my side in the end. However those are the discussions we should be having, not “Obama is a Socialist!” or psycho ditz babbling about “Death Panels.”
I’m not saying the Right Wing is wrong on this issue. There are real dangers afoot here. However taking cues from Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Bill O’reilly doesn’t solve the problem. We need to grow up, learn to talk rationally and not scream emotionally.
For Republicans:
Would I take a government run public option over having to deal with 3 different insurance companies all of which have their own complex bureaucratic maze designed specifically to ensure they don’t have to pay out against any claim I file? Yes. I’m not worried about the government getting between my doctor and me it frankly couldn’t be any worse than it is now. Patients Rights? Who do you think you’re kidding?
Also what’s this about having a choice of insurance companies? Maybe you make that kind of money but I don’t, and I’m middle class. The company I work for subsidizes my health insurance and if I leave that and find my own I’m screwed. Let me make this clear, I’m in excellent health, I’m single with no children, I’m very low risk and getting a decent health, dental, and optical insurance plans would double my cost of living.
Also note that the “Free Market” often does solve problems. However ya’ll have consistently legislated against the “Free Market” and in favor corporate subsidies and lenient corporate liability. All bets are off, when you stop lying about supporting the free market you can use that language. Until then shut up.
For Democrats:
Hey guys the Republicans have a point. The best arguments against a public option is that the government will be able to determine who will live and who will die. The only thing is they can’t point to specific examples because they are the party most likely to make such decisions. So I’ll do it for ‘em.
Remember Terri Schiavo? I do. Remember Congress passing a law to force her to remain on life support? This really concerns me. Let’s face it, you’re a politician, which means you are completely irrational and prone to making irrational decisions. The saving grace of our form of government is that it takes alot of nuts to make a pecan pie. However every once in awhile a big wind comes through and the next thing ya know we’re all eating pecan pies for a freakin’ year. My health is not to be at risk every time the wind blows, or every time some rambling moron mixes his metaphors.
I really don’t want the the “Right to Life” idiots forcing me to be stay on life support. I’d also prefer it if they didn’t interfere with reproductive issues including the big ol’ A word and of course birth control. A government run plan would likely put such issues and many others in the reach of a congressional vote or executive order. Not acceptable.
For the public:
Eatin’ at McDonald’s lately? Krispy Creme? Enjoyed a nice juicy steak lately? I’m sorry but if your regularly sucking down crap and you’ve got high cholesterol you should be paying for your own meds out of your own pocket. Hey while you’re at it why not have another cigarette? Chomp down a bag of chips or some ice cream while sittin’ on the couch watching America’s Got Talent. hhmmpphhfff Americans got a hedonism problem that’s what America’s got. Case and point, Viagra is covered under most insurance plans. That’s freakin’ insane.
You do have a right to enjoy life, but you don’t have a right to expect me to pay for it. Public plan or private plan it’s our obsession with crap that’s got costs so high. Get off your fat rump, go get some exercise, and try eating a meal that doesn’t contain 200% of your daily fat intake and maybe you’ll be able to get it up. Insurance isn’t the price you pay for indulging your every self-destructive impulse, it’s the thing that covers the cost of the unforseen and unpreventable. You wouldn’t expect to buy me a new car if I drove mine off a cliff for fun. I don’t expect to pay for your chemo-therapy if you smoke, your bi-pass if you eat bacon, or your kids ADD if you let the TV baby sit them.
For me:
You really should go to the doctor more. You’re going to end up with cancer that could have been cured cheaply if you’d have just made it in for that yearly check up. Hypocrite!
The guys who maintain the awesome django-storages seem hell bent on forcing you to support mercurial. That’s all well and good, but it screws up the install. So if you’ve tried running setup.py and gotten the exception about mercurial.error not being found, just make the installer version control agnostic it’s easy, and will make you feel better.
open setup.py and comment out this line:
setup_requires=['setuptools_hg'],
If you’ve tried installing and already got the error, you’ll also have to delete the file setuptools tried to install as a prerequisite
rm -f setuptools_hg-0.1.5-py2.5.egg
Wow that was simple. Now you can just run sudo python setup.py install and all will be good.
The problem with transcendentalism is that it teaches men to look for what is not there. It says, “Look here is a rock, but do not look at the rock. Look beyond the rock. Look to what the rock symbolizes”
Wilderness has plenty to show us without having to look beyond it. A rock is a rock. If you wish to look beyond the rock you may do so, thought most likely what you will find is another rock — probably of the same make up. Maybe there are a lot of rocks of the same type and perhaps you will notice they form a canyon. And perhaps if you wander up into that canyon you will find the rock is from an outcropping or a sedimentary layer that tells where we are standing used to be a lake teaming with wildlife.
Or. Perhaps as you wander up the canyon you realize that the rock was just that, a stone big enough to hold in your hand and weighty enough to send you on your present journey… ultimately and simply a rock.
There is something growing in the wastelands of America. Something beautiful, something sublime. Something that will be the end of the world as we know it. Something that will, I believe, be what carries us into a new epoch.
sometimes i catch my reflection looking back at me, as though it is shocked to see me standing there. sometimes i think the apparition is the real one, and i, nothing more than a fleeting myriad of light on a momentary window pane. there, then gone. sustained in the in-between. nothing more than the real me reflecting upon what the lookers glimpse caught for that brief moment. i, a figment conjoined through a reflection to what is real. but then i have always been partial to taoist butterflies.
( inspired by a photo http://OLoboCanta.deviantart.com/art/Ghost-11084318 )
for those who don’t know of butterflies look up Chang Tzu
Autonomic Response to Ekhart Tolie
I am as disturbed by teachers who wish me to believe that the natural state of a human consciousness is loving, blissful, and compassionate as I am by those who would teach us that man is tainted by impurity, selfishness, and original sin.
It seems to me that both teachers wish to instill a false image of “true being” in their students so that when the student in one case feels pain he need return to the teacher for instruction and in the other case that when he feels joy he is stricken by the need to repent.
The universe is composed of laws which is to say nature functions in patterns and not to say that some old man self important deity laid down a bunch of edicts.
Those who study the laws grow wise.
Those who exploit the laws grow rich.
Those who obey the laws grow rigid.
Those who play with the laws grow happy.
Those who ignore the laws grow weary.